there will be time
by mad to love
Summary: She remembers how he felt like a shadow, consuming and suffocating, how his very presence seemed to glide over hers. Sode no Shirayuki confronts Kyouka Suigetsu after the Kaien incident.


**note:** i don't know how this happened, but these two just wouldn't leave my path of destruction, so here it is!

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><p><strong>there will be time<strong>  
><em>she remembers how he felt like a shadow, consuming and suffocating, how his very presence seemed to glide over hers.<em>

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><p>He turns when he hears the delicate swishing of robes behind him. He smiles gracefully at the sight of her.<p>

"Ah, what an honour it is, _Sode no Shirayuki_," he drawls, his voice a perfect reflection of his wielder's.

Sode no Shirayuki grimaces in response, distress lining her pretty features like wrinkled satin. With every step forward, her body is screaming at her to leave, to get away from this man. She stubbornly forces herself to keep going until she is but an arm's length away.

Concern immediately flickers across Kyouka Suigetsu's face when he sees her up close: her hair is unwashed, her clothes unkempt, the bags prominent under her eyes.

He draws closer to her, accustomed to this routine, and reaches out gently, but she moves away.

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><p>He is not as smug as Aizen, but he is, if possible, more frightening.<p>

She remembers when she addressed him with honorifics and well-mannered bows, when all she knew of him were words heard in passing between other spirits, when his _good mornings_ didn't send a chill up her spine.

Between then and now, she doesn't remember. Doesn't _know_, maybe.

She wonders if he could erase memories.

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><p>Frowns form on both of their faces.<p>

"My my, just what is the matter?" he asks. His worried tone does nothing to dispel the patronizing gleam in his eyes.

She lowers her gaze, and says quietly, "My master– she is still very distressed. She avoids sleep for fear of recurring nightmares. She tries to wash off the blood that is not there anymore."

Kyouka Suigetsu is at her side in an instant, and his hand brushes against her face to lightly tilt her head upwards. Shirayuki has half a mind to jerk rudely away from his touch, but her body is silent.

"Poor Rukia-san," he murmurs, his eyes sympathetic and comforting– a sight she lets herself believe. "She went through quite a lot, didn't she?"

"Yes," she breathes. She leans into him just slightly, her pale hand reaching for the one resting at his side. She takes it in both of hers and examines it, noting the handsome structure and the battle-worn lines.

His other hand leaves her face and pulls her, almost hesitantly, against him.

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><p>It happens in a series of broken visions.<p>

She remembers closing her eyes against her defeat, with her submission following instantly. She remembers him laying her down against a floor that felt as smooth as marble, but as supple as lake water. She remembers his strong hands, his wet mouth, and his voice that always reminded her of the exquisite silks in Byakuya Kuchiki's closet.

She remembers how he felt like a shadow, consuming and suffocating, how his very presence seemed to glide over hers.

She remembers refusing to let any noise escape her until he got fed up (he was never as patient as Aizen) and quickened his movements. His attempts to draw a moan from her had worked, but his own crack in his ever-present composure had gotten her the victory.

When they are spent and he is lying beside her, he mentions Senbonzakura. His expression stresses both scathe and nonchalance, and she almost laughs.

He asks her why she hadn't gone to the zanpakutou of her master's precious brother. Shirayuki smirks internally, derisively.

She leans over and presses her mouth close to his ear, "Why, he really isn't any good at all. He is much too uptight. You, however," she pauses, her voice low but still retaining its fine aristocratic lilt, "are the Master of Illusions."

Shirayuki is delighted at the way Kyouka Suigetsu had tensed. She continues elegantly, "Who else would I have gone to?"

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><p><em>She meets Nejibana when they collide, falling into eachother as their wielders train. Water flows freely around him, but the both of them remain dry. He looks exactly like the original.<em>

_Sode no Shirayuki opens her mouth to speak, but he holds up a dignified hand and gestures to the place beside him. She complies._

_She watches silently as he waves his hands for emphasis as he talks, and she wonders vaguely that if she were to reach out and grab them, would she pass right through them? Was he real enough to hold up a solid form?_

_He speaks of the weather, of recent promotions within the division, of Kaien, of Miyako even, but he never touches upon–_

"_You're dead," she blurts. Her hand flies to her mouth at once, stunned at her impudence. She tries again, humbled now, "You're gone."_

_Nejibana's expression becomes fatigued, but otherwise unaffected, "Our home is that of Soul Society, you are well-acquainted with death."_

_He slides his eyes over to her, "Why should ours be any different?"_

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><p>She remembers his quickly-gathered response of <em>Ah, yes, of course<em> and how she'd marvelled at how swiftly tables could turn. She remembers him showing her a happy, unburdened Rukia standing beside a taller, _alive_ Kaien. She remembers living quite pleasantly in this other reality.

She especially remembers the way he'd shattered it: violently, cruelly. She gasps from the still-reeling images in her mind. She feels nauseous.

A brutal smirk curves his lips and he tells her to go back. Back to Soul Society, back to her master. The urge to draw her sword is enticing, but the idea of dirtying her robes further deters her.

She turns away.

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><p>"<em>Rukia-sama misses him deeply," she says softly.<em>

_He stands and looks down at her crouched form, small and defenceless; traits uncharacteristic of the commanding woman he is familiar with._

"_Then she is looking in the wrong place."_

_Nejibana's tone indicates finality, and Shirayuki feels alarm bubbling in her stomach as he turns to leave. She begins to rise when he stops, figure heaving suddenly. Blood drips from a gaping wound in his chest that extends to his back._

"You_ are looking in the wrong place," he grunts, with his back to her still._

_She flash steps to his side but is immediately pulled from that world._

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><p>"You wanted an illusion," he calls to her retreating back, demeaning and disgusted.<p>

She stops, and looks over her shoulder, gazing at him with practiced poise.

"Yes," she says.

"Thank you," is an afterthought of hers, something foreign and familiar all at once flitting across her expression. An abyss hangs between them.

He doesn't respond. He steps forward (an action to feed his need to do _something_, if anything), trying to bridge the distance, but she disappears in a gust of frosty wind.

When he is sure she is gone, he taps his sword and whispers a faint _shatter_.

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><p><em>Reality is merely an illusion, albeit a very persistent one.<br>— Albert Einstein  
><em>

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><p>0408/11


End file.
